by Jon Sharpe
When Fargo arrived at the Roundup, there was a greeter right inside the door, an elderly fellow with a suit that hadn’t fit him in twenty years and a pair of store-boughts that clacked every time he spoke.
“Good afternoon,” the greeter said, trying to sound citified. “Would you like a table, sir?”
“I need to find Sheriff Tillman.”
The man shook his head instantly. “You can’t bring that—body in here. It’ll make people lose their appetites.”
Remembering what Tillman looked like from the photograph in the sheriff’s office, Fargo pushed past the greeter and entered a large room with maybe fifteen tables where very well-dressed men and women dined and chatted and laughed in what appeared to be reasonably civilized circumstances. The flocked wallpaper, the two waiters in monkey suits, and the carpeting impressed Fargo, despite his sour mood.
But he wasn’t here as a restaurant critic.
Tillman wasn’t difficult to pick out. Balding man in a dark, expensive, three-piece suit with a full beard and a squat, but powerful-looking, body. The mayor was a scare-crow in a cheap suit, a brocaded vest, and full head of greasy yellow hair. He looked like a pitifully unsuccessful riverboat gambler.
Everybody was watching Fargo, of course, knowing at first glance what was inside the rolled blanket. He walked directly to Tillman’s table and snapped, “Here you go, Tillman. You’ll have to do a little work for once. Seems I’ve got this dead girl here.”
And with that, he bent over and laid the blanket roll across the table.
Several women started screaming.
He wrapped her back up, slung her over his shoulder again, and said, “I’ll see you in your office this afternoon.”
Then he got the hell out of there.
7
Liz Turner pestered the desk clerk at the Royalton Hotel until he threatened to call Butch, an ex-con who served as both the handyman and a bouncer.
Liz said, “Butch wouldn’t hurt a lady.”
“Who says you’re a lady?”
“Very funny. Where’s the manager?”
“He’s out of town.”
“And he left you in charge?”
“That’s right.”
“I need to talk to that man for sure. He leaves you in charge and somebody gets kidnapped from one of your rooms, in broad daylight, and you say you don’t know anything about it.”
“You’re making this up so you’ll have a good story for your stinking paper.”
“It makes a better story that you don’t even know what’s going on in your own hotel. A kidnapping and you don’t know anything about it. That should make your guests feel real safe. Now take me up to that room.”
Charlie Daly sighed. He was a master sigher. Very dramatic. His sigh told you more than you wanted to know about him—that he was weak, nervous, and easily given to pique, a word Liz had used in a newspaper story once. Only once. Many readers complained that she was “showing off” with words like that. And you know what? Liz decided they were right. It had been a boring story to write and so she’d taken it out on her readers by using a word few of them would know. She’d never used such a word again.
The desk clerk led her up to the room. He sat primly on a straight-backed chair while she prowled the room. She and Charlie got along most of the time. But if Charlie felt that his job was in jeopardy, he’d get his back up and claw at you.
“What exactly are you looking for?” he said, sighing again.
“Don’t go get your cravat in a whirl,” she said. “I want to see if Red told me a whopper.”
“Red? The kid?” He laughed. “My God, Liz, I don’t have much respect for you so-called journalists, but I would’ve thought that you’d be more responsible than to listen to Red.”
“I don’t think Red would lie to me.”
“Oh? Why not?”
She almost said, “Because he’s smitten with me.” Saying it, she’d sound vain and foolish. Was there any reason that Red would fib to her, even though he did have a crush on her? Maybe the fellow who told him was fibbing, just trying to stir up trouble.
She calmed down. “I’m sorry I insulted you.”
“Me, too. For insulting you, I mean.”
“I don’t see much of anything wrong with this room.”
“Nothing broken,” he said.
“No blood,” she said.
“Nothing missing.”
“No notes left behind.”
He sighed again. This time the sigh wasn’t so dramatic. He said, “Believe me, if I heard a story about a kidnapping here, the first person I’d talk to would be you.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed. “You know, this isn’t the first time somebody’s reported a kidnapping during the Fourth of July celebration.”
“It isn’t?”
“I went back through ten years of newspapers. This was way before we got here. Three times somebody came to the paper to report that somebody they knew had gone missing. They were sure it was foul play. You know, that the person hadn’t just wandered away. The paper always ran the items in the ‘Odds’N’Ends’ column.”
“Why not in the ‘Law News’ section?”
“I’m not sure. But it was strange.”
Charlie thought a moment. “You know, before young Tom became sheriff and you folks took over the newspaper, Tillman decided what got in the paper and what didn’t. Fellow that owned the newspaper was scared to death of making old Tillman mad at him.”
“That makes me curious.”
“Yeah? About what?”
“Well,” she said, “if old man Tillman didn’t want the full story in the paper, maybe he had something to do with those disappearances himself.”
Fargo wanted to clean up and put on some fresh clothes. Hauling a dead person around left its traces on a fella.
He was just about to enter his room when he heard a quiet voice behind him say, “I was just about to clean up your room. My name is Maria Veldez.”
The Mexican chambermaid he’d seen earlier. Couldn’t have been more than five foot three, couldn’t have weighed more than one hundred pounds, but her body was full and well-rounded and her face was beautiful.
“Well, don’t let me stop you,” Fargo said.
He used his key, opened the door, and allowed her to enter first.
“I was just going to change clothes,” he said. He’d become almost painfully aware of her charms, couldn’t think of much else, in fact. “You turn around and do your work. And I’ll grab me a fresh shirt and pants.”
She smiled. “This hotel is full of old men. I see them half-naked all the time. Big bellies and breasts like women and chins that nearly touch their chests.” She sent him an openly admiring glance. “I wish I could see men like you walking around half-naked.” She giggled sweetly. “Then I would have a good reason to come to work every day.”
Fargo might not have been a deep thinker or particularly learned man but he sure as hell knew when a lady was expressing interest in his body.
He walked over to her and slid his arms over her shoulders and brought her to him. “I’ll take my shirt off if you’ll do the same.”
She made a cute little face. Put a finger to her chin as if she were pondering philosophical problems. “Let me see. I’ll have to think about that.” Then she slid her arms around his waist and said, “OK, you talked me into it.”
They were on the bed less than a minute later, as he teased the both of them by rubbing his rod against the soft sweet entrance to her sex. In moments they were both jerking and bucking, eager to get past this first stage. She eased him over on his back and licked her lips to the tip of his rigid manhood, flicking the head with her tongue, and then seeming to take the enormity of it completely inside her mouth.
He wondered if he could hold out. She was bringing him the sort of pleasure that blinded a man, made him one big erection, his entire body, his entire mind. Her tongue wrapped itself around his rod until—just at the moment he thought
he could hold out no longer—she rolled over and guided him inside her.
The passion was reckless, two people flinging themselves at each other in a kind of carnal madness, him thrusting faster and deeper, faster and deeper, his hands clenching on her buttocks making her cry out each time he did so. Her breasts were wonderfully swollen with his tongue and her own desire.
“Now, Fargo! Now!” she whispered.
And he was glad to comply, sending his searing semen rich and deep into her.
Spent, they lay in each other’s arms in the drifting ecstasy that always follows a good round of sex. Finally, he said, “Now, that’s what I call getting my room cleaned.”
“Yes,” she smiled, “I’ll have to remember your room number next time I’m in the mood to do a little cleaning myself.”
Fargo was in need of a drink so he pushed through the bat-wings of a place called Curly’s.
He wasn’t surprised to find Deputy Sheriff Larson sitting at a table by himself with a fifth of whiskey in front of him. Fargo ordered a beer at the bar, and when he turned to look for somewhere to sit—not hard since the place was empty except for three old guys playing a card game Fargo had never heard of—Larson waved him over.
What the hell, Fargo thought.
The old farts gave him the once-over. One of them apparently knew who he was because he whispered through a set of store-boughts the word “Fargo.” Notoriety, he thought. All he wanted was a fishing pole, a fishing hole, and some sleep.
“I thought we might as well be friendly,” Larson said when Fargo reached his table.
“Now why would you think a thing like that?”
Larson shrugged bony shoulders. Fargo had the impression that Larson was probably one of those bony gents who could be pretty tough when he needed to be.
“We’re both working for the same thing, Mr. Fargo.”
“Oh? What would that be?” Fargo had yet to sit down. He glanced around the saloon. It was new enough that the long pine bar still smelled of sawn lumber. The floor was dirt. But at least Curly’s didn’t smell of the usual vomit, blood, beer, and urine. But give it a year. It would have a scent like an old latrine.
Larson smiled. “Why, law and order, Mr. Fargo, law and order.”
“Would that be law and order or Noah Tillman’s law and order?”
This time, Larson laughed. “They couldn’t be the same thing?”
“Probably not.”
He flipped a chair around and sat with its back facing Larson.
“Tell me about Skeleton Key.”
Larson shook his head as if he’d just heard a very sad tale. “So they’ve already gotten to you, huh, Mr. Fargo?”
“Who’s ‘they?’ ”
“ ‘They’ are the ones who practice granny medicine and believe that half the women in town are secret witches.”
“So there’s nothing to it?”
“Is there anything to a witch on a broomstick flying across the moon?”
Fargo sipped his beer. On a boiling day like this one, beer was equal to the elixir of the gods. “Then why all this interest?”
“Because it’s another way to get at Noah Tillman. Another rumor to ruin his reputation with.”
“Then people don’t really believe anything’s going on out at Skeleton Key?”
“Some do. The ones I talked about. The ones who believe—as my mother did—that if you wrapped a rattlesnake around your throat, it’d heal your swollen tonsils. Fortunately, Papa would never let her try that particular medicine out on us kids.”
“How about the other people?”
“Businessmen, mostly,” Larson said. “There’s no doubt that Noah runs this town. Hell, he should. He built it. If he hadn’t been successful, nobody would ever have come here. You realize that?”
“I suppose that’s right.”
“But people get tired of being grateful. And they get tired of always having to kowtow to the most powerful man in the area. It’s like the dukes and earls in England. Eventually, the serfs revolted.”
“Anybody around here revolting yet?”
Larson poured himself a clean shot of whiskey—good bonded whiskey—and knocked it back without hesitation. “That’s enough. The wife tells me two drinks a day and by God you don’t want to go up against my wife. Ninety-seven pounds of pure hellishness when she wants to be.” He said this with obvious affection.
“You didn’t answer my question. Is anybody around here revolting against Noah Tillman?”
“Well, in quiet ways. Rumors, really. That’s about all. That’s their weapon of choice. They wouldn’t dare go up against him directly. So they gossip. And gossip eventually takes its toll in small ways.”
“So there’s nothing going on at Skeleton Key?”
“You want an honest answer?”
“I’d appreciate it.”
For the first time, Larson’s face showed both strain and weariness. “I’ve got a very sick daughter, Mr. Fargo. A bad heart. I’m always taking her to Little Rock to see doctors. And I’m not rich. When Noah came to me and said that I was to report back to him on anything ‘interesting’ that went on in the sheriff’s office, I said no. I said I like Tom too much. Tom’s the best sheriff this town’s ever had.”
“I’ve heard that.”
“Then Noah offered me money. I always thought I was an honest man. I took the money. Because of my daughter. Every penny goes to her. You can believe that or not but it’s the truth.”
Fargo surprised himself. He believed Larson.
“I did one more thing, too.”
“What’s that?”
“I told Tom what was going on. I told him that if there was anything he didn’t want his old man to find out, not to tell me. I didn’t want to cheat either of my bosses. I tell Noah everything I hear. But I don’t hear much because I warned Tom ahead of time. He plays everything close to the vest. That leaves only one other person who could be supplying Noah with the information I don’t have, Queeg.”
“Queeg’s a spy for Noah?”
He laughed and not without a certain respect. “That’s Noah. He knew how much I liked Tom and he knew I’d tell him some things but not everything. So he put Queeg on the payroll, too. Queeg needs money like everybody else.”
“Why doesn’t he fire you?”
“Because anybody who worked for him, Noah would get to one way or the other. Tom’d end up firing everybody who ever pinned on a badge. If it’s something real secret, Tom keeps it strictly to himself. Queeg learns some things I don’t and vice versa. But there are things that only Tom knows about, too.” This time his smile was tainted with embarrassment. “I guess I’m not the honest fella I always thought I was.”
This was all supposed to work out so simple, Karl Ekert thought, as he looked down at the grave site that had briefly held Daisy’s body.
Me and the Mex go into town, find the girl, take her, bring her back.
Easy as pie.
Except they hadn’t counted on finding her in the room of some gunny called the Trailsman. And they sure hadn’t thought the girl, after being knocked out with the drug splashed on the handkerchief, would suddenly wake up, jump down from the Mex’s horse, and start running.
The Mex had caught her, wrestled with her and then, with rage, shot her in the forehead.
Somebody had returned the favor, Ekert thought as he looked down at the Mex.
Ekert looked at the ruins of their plan. The grave they’d dug had been dug up again, small piles of red clay everywhere. Plus the muddied shovel. And the body of Lopez itself.
The last time Ekert had seen Lopez alive was after they’d dug the grave. Ekert wanted to get back to the ranch so he told Lopez to finish up and then head back.
Then something happened. But what? How had anybody figured out that Lopez was here? Maybe Lopez, a man with a treacherous temper, had opened fire on somebody and started the whole thing that way? But who would unearth the girl and then steal her corpse? Whatever was going on
here was very confusing.
He’d throw Lopez over his own horse and take him back and talk to the boss. Maybe the boss could help clear up the mystery.
Stupid damned Mex, he thought as he went over and dug his hands beneath the corpse. The flies were already feasting on the dead and bloody flesh.
He was beginning to think that maybe that damned gunny the girl had been with—he had something to do with this. Taking the corpse. Shooting the Mex.
Ekert frowned to himself. This was all supposed to work out so simple.
Fargo was on his way to the newspaper office when he saw a crippled man approach him. The man wore town clothes, a boiled white shirt, and trousers held up by suspenders. He wore a rakish hat at an angle. His gray mustache matched the gray hair beneath the hat.
“I’m Jefferson Tolan,” the man said with a heavy drawl. “I’m the teacher at the school up the road.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Tolan. But I’m in a hurry, I’m afraid.”
Tolan surprised him by producing money. A lot of it. Green money. Laid in the palm of his hand. “This is for you.”
“Well, that’s very nice. But I didn’t do anything to earn it.”
“That’s the thing. I’m hoping you’ll take the money now and then go about earning it later.”
Fargo sighed. He wanted to get on and see the newspaper woman.
“I have a room right there in the hotel, Mr. Fargo. I want to show you some photographs of my little girls and see if you can help find them for me.”
Fargo figured that it would take longer to talk his way out of this than to just go up, see the photographs of the little girls, and then say, no, he was sorry, he didn’t have time for the job. Whatever it might be.
“All right, Mr. Tolan. But I’ve only got a few minutes.”
“I appreciate this.” He started to walk toward the hotel and then stopped. “Oh, I wasn’t always gimped up like this, Mr. Fargo. I went looking for my little girls last year. One of the places I wanted to check out was Skeleton Key. But it seems Mr. Burgade had other ideas. Old Noah’s had some pretty low characters working for him over the years, but they don’t come any lower than Burgade. Anyway, I tried three or four times. The last time, Burgade put a bullet in my knee.”
